Yesterday, Randy and I went to a rock outlet and bought some large, flat pieces of quartzite to line Unicom's grave. We have a brief break in what is supposed to be a week of rain, so this needed to be the day. It was a gray, chilly and overcast. This morning, I drove to Fresno and picked up Uni's body. That was a tough moment. Yes, he was wrapped up. There's no way I could bear to see him, but even so...

Randy had already dug the grave several days ago. We chose to put him next to one of his favorite spots at the far corner of the patio. Uni loved to lie there where he could keep an eye on everything: to one side was the house, below him was my office, and spread out in front of him was the valley. Plus it was a great place to listen for gophers. He would hang out there for hours.

Randy laid in the quartzite slabs. I wrapped Uni in his towel. This was the towel Randy kept on the sofa so that Uni could knead it, which he did nearly every night. We set Uni's body inside and set the stone slabs around and over him. We left him sprigs of catnip because he was such a niphead. I put in a stone chip from the headstone of Peter's grave. This seemed appropriate because we never would have had Uni at all if Peter hadn't insisted on bringing him home.

Once the grave was filled in, Randy moved over a large, triangular boulder that Uni loved to sit on. That is now his headstone. We had a pile of large and small rocks which we used to outline and cover the grave.

Uni has come home, or at least his body has. I hope his bright little spirit has moved on to happier things.

The vet called with his report on Unicom's autopsy. It confirmed what he had theorized -- severe hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Uni had a very thickened left ventricle (so his heart wouldn't have been pumping efficiently, therefore leading to formation of clots) and clots in the right atrium. The vet said it was quite unusual to see clots on the right side. They usually occur in the left atrium. He had no explanation for it, but it looks pretty definite that the underlying heart disease, the stress and the clots are what killed Uni. His lungs were waterlogged, totally filled with fluid, which is brought on by the clots lodging in the lungs.

Basically, Uni's days were numbered no matter what. The heart problems were going to kill him. The stress of the day probably brought it to the crisis point a bit sooner, but there was little we could have done. The vet thinks that if we'd kept him at home that night, Uni might have died a bit later at best.

Perhaps if we'd somehow detected the heart condition sooner, we could have extended his life by a few months, possibly more, but the end was inevitable. It turns out that the aspirin we were giving him was doing the most good. The Prednisone, however, was doing harm in this particular situation. There's no cure for this heart condition and the best one can do is treat the symptoms. The vet said they don't know yet what causes it. It may have some genetic component, but what brings it on is still a mystery. In humans, this condition can show up in boxers and other athletes. I've heard about that in the past, especially when an otherwise healthy athlete suddenly drops dead.

I don't feel entirely absolved, but I know there was nothing significant we could have done. It sure doesn't make the pain of missing Unicom any easier to bear, and damn, I'm crying again.

Yesterday afternoon, I drove to Fresno and picked up Uni's body at the emergency hospital. The final insult is that I had to pay yet more hundreds of dollars to close out the bill. It's not that I begrudge them all the work they did trying to save Uni. They did their best. But damn...it cost me hundreds and hundreds of dollars with no cat to show for it. It cost me more to *lose* Uni than it cost to repair Owl. That hurts. It's like someone dealt me a body blow and then, while I'm gasping on the ground in pain, they kick me in the teeth.

The Fresno vet is located very close by to that hospital, so I arranged an appointment in which I turned Uni's body over to them and had Querida examined. My intuition is that she needs less of the Tapazole and I was worried about having her on Prednizone for so long. She also gets a lot of sinus congestion, as though she keeps getting the cat version of a cold.

She quacked unhappily most of the way down there. Querida has always hated being confined. The vet didn't seen anything seriously wrong, but we did a blood and urine work-up to be sure.

He called today with the results. As I suspected, we can cut back the Tapazole a little bit as her thyroid is way down. There are indications she's heading for some kidney trouble. We are carefully weaning her off the Pred., and I'll need to get her rechecked in a couple of weeks. Naturally, she had none of the symptoms of congestion at the time, but he gave me some nose drops for her all the same.

Tribble is slowly putting on weight now that he's getting Tapazole. I can no longer feel every bone in his body, though he's still extremely skinny. And I think he's calmed down somewhat. He's lying next to my keyboard and I can see that his breathing looks much more normal than it used to.

A few minutes ago, I heard the rustle of a plastic bag. I hurried over. Sure enough, there was Owl snacking away. I have no idea how he got hold of that bag and he wasn't happy with me for taking it away. I really must grow some oat grass for him.

Owl has also returned to removing the fur from his back, thus I am once again giving him the anti-histamines. He is *really* unhappy about that, poor boy.

I thank everyone for the hugs and kind wishes. We aren't taking Uni's death well at all. It was a deeply melancholy day. The house feels empty without him.

Randy came down to the office last night to get some cat therapy. He scritched a lot of cat ears and wielded the feather toy with half the Horde taking turns at killing the feather. Randy said he saw Owl scratch his chin using the injured leg, so that's pretty good. Owl is getting along on the leg a little better each day. Because of his allergies, Randy can only stay down here about 10 minutes, but it helped lift his depression, at least for a while.

The only one who comes out happier is Nefreet. Her nemesis is gone. No more sharing the sofa, the bed, the food, the catbox or the humans.

Here is what happened with Unicom, starting Mon. afternoon.

As I mentioned before, I took him to the Fresno vet that did the surgery on Owl. It was meant to be a routine visit to start a new treatment for Uni's arthritis. Instead, the vet discovered that Uni had something going quite wrong with his heart. He was having blood work done as the first step in following up on it.

I got home from that trip to Fresno around 6 pm, due to horrendous traffic. After that, Uni was never the same. He began to have problems with his breathing. As the night wore on, Randy and I grew progressively more concerned as Uni had to labor more and more for each breath. Oddly enough, he would eat food and drink water and look just fine, then he'd lie down and keep changing position, unable to get comfortable. He got on the sofa between us he usually did, but couldn't summon the energy to knead. Though it must have been hard, he purred as we petted him, but it wasn't his normal purr. It sounded like a purr with a death rattle mixed into it.

That did it. We'd been intensely debating what to do for over an hour. I'd called every local vet, but every single one of them up in the mountains now refers after-hours emergencies to a 24-hour emergency hospital down at the south end of Fresno -- an hour's drive from here. We were very worried about how badly the stress of going back into the carrier and making that trip could affect Uni. But the breathing was becoming too labored and too erratic. We were afraid he wouldn't last the night.

Around 11 pm, we got ready and went. I put the carrier in the back seat, but decided to hold Uni in my lap next to the carrier instead of sitting up front while Randy drove. I should have remembered what Uni did on the earlier trip. We got to the bottom of the driveway when I felt myself soaked with fresh, warm cat urine. Yes, the last thing Uni did while I was holding him was to pee on me. I hastily helped him into the carrier as we dashed back to the house. I cleaned up and changed clothes as fast as humanly possible.

I sat next to Uni on the long drive and tried to comfort him through the grill of the carrier. He was very upset. A few times he clawed at the grill and once, while I was trying to calm him, he bit my finger. Not hard and I don't think it was intentional. He was badly stressed.

The young man who checked us in at the emergency hospital quickly and effeciently took our info and saw how badly Uni was breathing, so he took him into the back right away where they put him into a special breathing chamber that pumped super-saturated oxygen to him. We did the necessary paperwork and met with the doctor. He was wonderful, very thorough, with just the right blend of compassion and a no-b.s. just-the-facts attitude.

We waited until he'd taken some x-rays, then he went over the x-rays with us in thorough detail. The outlook was very bad. Uni had fluid both in and around his lungs, enough to make it impossible to even see the heart. About the only way he was breathing was from one corner of the right lung. The left lung had virtually no function left at all and some kind of major mass in the entire central lobe. The mass could have been anything from pnuemonia to cancer.

Another problem was the long-term Prednisone use, which causes its own complications. Plus he still had the galloping heart beat. All in all, we left trying to keep hope they could save him, but I cried as we drove back. We got home around 3 am, exhausted in every way and dragged ourselves to bed.

Around 5:30 am, I was jolted from sleep by the phone. I knew it had to be the emergency vet and I knew it had to be bad news. It was. He gave me a quick run-down on everything they had tried, but it had all failed. Uni was fading quickly and reaching a stage where he would be in intense agony. We did what had to be done and gave the vet permission to give Uni a quick release from suffering.

Then Randy and I held each other and sobbed and sobbed our damned hearts out. We cried for hours. We cried as the dawn came in on the wings of a fierce storm. The storm outside echoed the storm of grief inside. All morning long, we kept bursting into tears. We went over what could have happened, how we could have missed earlier signs of trouble, what we could have done differently.

The Fresno vet who saw Uni first called me this afternoon, having been notified by the emergency hospital. He was totally shocked by what had happened, that Uni had failed so dramatically so quickly. He was very kind about it and discussed it with me at length. It's so typical of cats to hide how badly they're really doing, and when he saw Uni, there wasn't the labored breathing or obvious signs of what was to come. He wished he had done an x-ray yesterday, in case it might have shown something. His best guess is that Uni had the underlying hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (heart disease), but because of the stress he had an pulmonary embolism which quickly created the fluid in his lungs.

He offered to do an autopsy for free, so that we can know for sure what happened, and he offered to buy back the expensive arthritis medicine I'd just bought. I plan to go to Fresno on Friday and accept both of his offers.

We are emotional wrecks, totally heartbroken, and I'm crying again as I write this. We miss our beautiful boy so much. There is a giant Uni-sized hole in our lives. I will miss the most hearing him come stumping down the hallway to the bedroom, scratch at the door, give me is impatient little "rorrrw" when I open the door, and the wonderful times we had with him curled up between us on the bed as we rubbed his belly and scratched his chin. He had a majestic, loud purr machine that we will never hear again.

He was 12 going on 13, so he had a full life. He gave us as much love as we gave him. His last years were as happy as they could be. But it doesn't make the pain any less. Farewell, Unicom, Mighty Gopher Slayer.

Today was Unicom's turn to visit the vet in Fresno. When I was there last time with Owl, I took Uni's x-rays along and discussed Uni's arthritis problem with him. I decided it was worth the long drive to have this vet help me get Uni started on a new treatment.

The day started very badly for Uni. The guy who is remodelling some walls for me forgot about keeping his dog restrained until I could get all the cats inside. He has a nice dog, but she's a big exuberant goof and after being chased by the big exuberant not-nice dog, you can imagine that this freaked out poor Uni. Not to mention that Randy was holding him at the time (in order to bring him inside) and Randy ended up with a set of claw gouges in his arm.

Then there was the noise and upset of the remodelling work itself. So by the time I put Uni in the carrier, he was already pretty upset. Add to this that he *hates* the carrier. He sent me a clear message. Within 5 minutes of a 50 minute trip, he peed all over it.

Have you ever gone to deal with a small problem, only to unexpectedly be faced with a far bigger and more serious one?

The vet gave Uni an exam, of course, since he's never seen him before. He listened gravely to Uni's heart and informed me that Uni has a galloping heartbeat. This is a strong indicator of a heart problem. He couldn't make a definite diagnosis without doing more tests such as EKG and ultrasound.

He had me listen through the stethoscope and wants me to listen to Uni's heart when he's relaxed at home to see whether it continues to gallop or returns to a normal lub-dub beat. Randy and I have noticed that Uni has not been doing as well over the past year. He's become far less active and has days when he obviously feels badly. However, it's easy to associate that with the pain and problems of the arthritis.

The vet did go ahead and give Uni the first Adequan shot (for the arthritis), showing me how to do it and gave me what I need for the treatments. I also had him do a "senior panel" blood work-up, though I won't get the results until tomorrow.

I had to explain Uni's name twice: once to the receptionist and once to the doctor. The female techs were quite taken with my big old orange boy.

However, now that Uni's been home for hours and should be recovered, he's breathing very heavily. Not quite labored, but far from normal. Randy and I are both deeply worried. We've been researching on the net and the symptoms keep pointing to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (enlarged heart), with grim outlooks. There is some treatment, but no cure and not a great prognosis.

I suspect neither one of us will sleep easily tonight, worrying about about Uni.

re Owl, I discussed the red section of Owl's incision. It hasn't change at all and I seen no indications of infection or problem. When I described it to the vet, he agreed that it sounds like a certain type of scar tissue. I forget the term he used. The part of the incision didn't heal quite as flat as the rest of it, so it formed that scar tissue to fill in the space. I hope most of it will be covered over when his fur grows back.

Owl horked up a big old hairball yesterday. Aside from that, he seems to be doing pretty well. There's a small section of his scar that looks a little red to me, so I'm keeping a very close eye on it. I don't think it's infected. I think that part might bother Owl and he keeps licking it until it becomes a little irritated.

Since I brought Owl home from the surgery, I've no longer been leaving the cat door open in the office because he kept showing too much interest in it. Today I got tired of having to constantly go to the door to let cats in and out. I decided to open the cat door, figuring I'd keep a close eye on Owl.

Hah! I forget that he's a sumo ninja. Two minutes later, I turned around to find Owl pulling his stapled leg out the cat door. I decided to take pity on him, so I let him stay outside while I stood attendance on him for a few minutes. All he really wanted to do was eat grass. Yeesh. I let him graze for a minute, then brought him inside and closed the cat door again. I swear, his favorite hobby is throwing up. Part of his previous routine was to go outside, eat grass, come inside and throw it up. I guess he misses that.

At least it told me I could throw out the special cat box I made with the low sides. If he can get out the cat door, he can get in and out of a regular cat box. And sure enough, a short time later he did exactly that.

I'm glad he's going to the vet this afternoon, though. There are a number of staples that are in the process of coming out already.

LATER:

Owl was an excellent boy. He refused to come out of the carrier, as usual, not that I can entirely blame him. The vet was impressed with how well he's using the leg already, but was rather surprised by the staples that were coming loose. He said his staples usually hold better than that. Leave it to Owl to push the limits.

From this point on, it's a gradual process of Owl regaining some use of the leg. I'm supposed to keep doing the flexing exercise to encourage him to bend it more.

Owl is down to 15 lbs and bit, which is good. He needed to lose some of the excess weight he was carrying.

I also discussed Unicom's arthritis condition with the vet. I brought along Uni's x-rays. Very severe arthritis, he commented, then he suggested Adequan, a type of glucosamine injection that is much more powerful than the glucosamine pills and has less side-effects than the other medications. He would like to see me wean Uni off the aspirin and Prednisone, if this other medication helps him enough. I'm checking with my local vet about getting it.

I'm pleased with the progress that Owl is making. He's bending the knee a little bit more and even limping along on it. He's only putting the barest amount of weight on it and the leg is very shaky (of course), but that still seems good to me. We'll see what the vet says tomorrow when I take Owl back to have the metal staples removed.

I had to take a short trip and when I got back, my sitter told me that Diva seems to be having her constipation problem again. She strained in the box without producing anything. My sitter told me to try canned pumpkin. She said a vet recommended it and that her cats love it as a treat.

So yesterday I put dollops of the canned pumpkin in their bowls. There was a flurry of excitement, followed by a rather quick descent into confusion. "What IS this stuff? Where's the good stuff?" Tribble went from bowl to bowl and went away unhappy. It was not a resounding success.

By this morning, a bit more of the pumpkin had been eaten. I tried a new approach. I opened the regular can of food they were expecting and mixed that into the pumpkin. That's worked much better. And Diva made a deposit in the cat box this morning, so I can stop worrying about her for the time being.

Owl weirded out on me today and decided to run away from me (or to be more precise, hobble quickly), maybe because he's tired of taking pills. I had to be careful not to make him think I was chasing him, which I wasn't, because I didn't him to hurt himself in the process. All I really wanted to do was give him some love and see how he was doing. Besides, we finished the anti-biotics, so no more pills.

However, for some strange reason, both of the cats who were happily taking pills inside the treats have suddenly and in unison decided they absolutely will NOT touch the treats. Querida and Diva were being so good about it. Now...total boycott. Or would that be a catcott? At any rate, it's back to doing the pills the hard way, dammit.

It's been one week since Owl's surgery. He managed to get the clear patch most of the way off. The sticky side was accumulating rather a lot of hair and grit, so I pulled it the rest of the way off today. That was a small "ouch!" moment that Owl didn't enjoy.

Other than that, I'd say he's coming along all right. He can't put any real pressure on the leg, but it looks like he's getting a tiny bit of bend in it and he's setting the toes down more properly instead of dragging them and the leg along behind him. Small bits of improvement in a long process of healing.

An Animal Control officer called yesterday to ask whether I'd seen the dog running loose again. I haven't. She also informed me that due to a complaint from yet another person in the area, she set out a large cage-trap for the dog. I'm still paranoid every time the cats outside.

I bought some new, very healthy, high quality diet food for the moggies. The horde in my office are eating it readily enough, but the spoiled house cats, Uni and Nefreet, have turned up their dainty noses at it. I brought home a different kind of food for them today. I'm a bit worried about Uni who has thrown up three times in two days. We'll see if the new new food makes a difference. Please help by donating to the Owl Surgery Fund.

My deepest thanks to the kind and generous people who have recently sent donations.

Imagine my shock when I felt a weight against my leg and a heavy THUMP and I realized that Owl had just tried - and of course failed -- to jump onto the desk! Fortunately, he didn't seem to hurt himself, the silly goon. I can't believe that the thought of jumping even entered his furry moggy brain.

I figured he wanted to be in his usual place next to my keyboard, so I lifted him up. He hobbled around the desk and kept trying to plop in his regular spots, but without being able to bend that leg, he just couldn't manage it without knocking my keyboard into my lap.

At one point he cried from trying the maneuver the injured leg in the tight space, and I decided to set him back on the floor for his own good.

I'm also relieved to see that the swelling in his foot has finally subsided and it's back down to normal size. He's almost managed to remove the clear patch. The vet said to let it come off whenever it would, so I'm not worrying about it. Please help by donating to the Owl Surgery Fund.

My deepest thanks to the kind and generous people who have recently sent donations.

This was the day that Owl's narcotic pain patch was supposed to come off. He had a fairly tight binding around his neck to hold it in place, so I naively thought all I had to do was cut off the binding, remove the patch and drop it off at the vet's to be properly discarded.

I had a plastic bag ready, donned plastic gloves and discovered to my shock that the pain patch was stapled to his skin! Just with teeny little staples, but all the same, I wasn't going to risk hurting him by trying to somehow remove them myself. I actually thought of using my regular office staple remover gadget, but it was too big for these staples.

That's how Owl ended up making an unplanned trip into town this afternoon. I had hoped to avoid putting him in the carrier again so soon. I was glad that he seemed a bit more chipper and alert today, after being so inert yesterday.

It only took the vet about 2 minutes to remove the patch. I'll bet Owl is really glad to have all that foofah off his neck. I just wish he would bend the knee more. He's stubbornly keeping it as straight as he can manage, and the only time he bends it is when I make him. Well, maybe it's early yet and that will come. In about another week I have to take him back to the vet in Fresno to have the big staples on his leg removed and we'll see what the vet says about it then.

After that, Owl had to ride around town with me for a couple of hours as I had a dozen errands to do. Luckily, it was a nice cool day and he was a perfect gentleman about it.

I picked up a couple of photos that I took the other day, so for those with the stomach for it, you can see what his leg looks like at the moment. Please help by donating to the Owl Surgery Fund.

My deepest thanks to the kind and generous people who have recently sent donations.

I think Owl may be feeling not so great today. He's mostly inert, not showing interest in treats or much else, poor baby. It could be that the pain patch on his neck isn't giving him as much relief, since it's supposed to come off tomorrow. He was very good about letting me flex his leg, though.

When I opened the front door first thing this morning to let Nefreet onto the porch, a big furry orange cat bolted from the front yard and raced toward the canyon. It was a wet, misty, dripping morning, so I feel sorry for the poor thing. I don't know where it's coming from, whether it's abandoned, lost or feral. I suspect he's one of the reasons Unicom sometimes comes inside at night looking spooked. Please help by donating to the Owl Surgery Fund.

Owl's been pretty quiet today, understandably. He wasn't entirely happy with the leg-bending this morning. I'm being very careful and gentle, but after the second bend, he got up and hobbled off. Today he's been sleeping next to the heater. It must feel strange to him to have one whole leg and hip bare with no fur to keep him warm. Please help by donating to the Owl Surgery Fund.

Owl is doing pretty well today. He's hobbling around more than I would have expected, from one part of the office to another. The silly cat even used the regular cat tubs instead of the nice, easy, low-cut cat box I made for him. Once I realized he was doing that, I waited until he was done and carefully lifted him out, rather than have him drag that leg over the high edge of the tub.

Then he headed for the cat door. I don't know how serious he was, but when he stuck his head out, I said, "No, no, no! Don't even think about it!" He backed away in a hurry. After that, I got the rest of the cats inside (not hard to do, since it was raining) and blocked off the cat door. I'm afraid the rest of the Horde will have to share Owl's confinement.

I also did the stretching and bending the vet told me to do. Owl lies there absolutely quiet and still, even though I could be hurting him Bast knows how much, no matter how gentle I try to be. He is such a gentle boy.

I tried calling the purported owner of Dodger, but was told I'd have to try back later tonight.

I spoke with a woman at county Animal Control and gave her all the info. She was both sympathetic and indignant by the time I explained everything. An AC officer is supposed to stop by that house this afternoon to check on the dog and make sure the guy keeps the dog restrained. The woman I spoke with said to be sure and call her any time I see the dogs wandering around, so she can create a paper trail. She also said that if the man I talk to tonight admits to being the owner of the dog, that's the one I should go after legally.
Please help by donating to the Owl Surgery Fund.

Per the vet's instructions, I called this morning and was told that Owl was fine to come home. I intended to get down there by early afternoon, but too many other thing intervened and I found myself on the way to Fresno at 4 pm, much later than intended or desired.

A slight digression -- one of the things that intervened occurred when I was heading into town to do errands around 11 am. As I was halfway down my 2 miles of dirt road, I saw the stray dogs again -- the big black and white mastiffy-looking thing that was at my house chasing the cats and the medium-sized brown mongrel that is his constant companion. I've been watching for them for days and I wasn't going to miss this chance to find out where they came from.

I talked nicely to them from the car. This made them nervous and they took off. I slowly followed them. Having the car follow also made them nervous and as I hoped, they headed for home. They cut across a field where I lost track of them, but they went in a direction that I had suspected. I took the side road and stopped at the nearest house.

A young woman there pointed out where the dogs come from. They've had trouble with the dogs, too. She said the owners were "partyers" and made a lot of noise. I called Randy to fill him in on this info and to let him know I was going there.

I drove up to a rundown, crappy mobile and sure enough, there were the two dogs right at home. The grounds were covered with litter. When I got out, the dogs were friendly goofs, not at all threatening. The big black and white guy kept jumping up on me until I used Command Voice on him. I knocked on the door. The porch area was covered with litter, booze bottles and all form of trash, and the inside that I could see through the glass doors looked like a disaster area.

A young guy about 19 or 20 came outside. I asked if he was the owner of the dogs. Scarlett, the brown dog, was his but Dodger, the black and white dog, supposedly belongs to his ex-girlfriend's parents who won't come and get him. Right. I laid the whole situation out to him with great emotion and in no uncertain terms -- where the dogs had been, what they had done, what it had cost me (and I don't just mean money) and so forth. He didn't have the nerve to look me in the eye and could barely find a single word to utter. He wasn't taking any responsibility, that's for sure.

I had pen and pad handy, so I demanded his info, wrote it down, got the name and number of the supposed "owners" of Dodger. Then the kid said something quite telling -- he said, "he (meaning Dodger) ate my cat". I warned him he'd better get Dodger under control or tied up or whatever because if he sets foot on my property again, that's it.

Next step is to call the other people and see what kind of response I get. I suspect the dog is in a custody limbo where nobody really wants him. I doubt I'll get satisfaction this way. I also intend to talk to Animal Control to see what they say about it. The final step is likely to be small claims court, though given what I saw at the kid's place, getting money out of them could be tough.

Anyway, back to Owl.

The vet wanted to talk to me, so I had to wait a while. He brought out the after-surgery x-rays so I could see exactly what he'd done, and he even brought out the little knee model for further reference. Owl had two humongous screws through the two leg bones, with a figure-8 piece of wire connecting the screws. Plus there are a bunch of tough sutures in there, all of this to hold the bones in place while scar tissues forms and helps to further keep it in place. There's also a long line of metal staples that come out in two weeks.

Next he brought Owl out. Owl was a most seriously unhappy Frankenstein moggy. His entire right hindquarters are shaved, of course, with a big, long operation scar. They didn't shave the foot and it's still twice the size of the other foot. He has shaved patches on both front legs where the IV and whatever went. He has a narcotic pain patch fastened around his neck with a bandage collar (that comes off on Mon.) He looked like hell.

The vet stressed that it's very important for me to gently stretch and bend the knee and leg twice a day to keep it from stiffening up too much as it heals and to promote flexibility. He showed me what he wanted me to do. He said Owl probably won't start using the leg for another 2-3 weeks. He said to try and get him to eat, since Owl wouldn't eat for him while there. Then he eased Owl butt-first into the carrier.

I drove home slowly and carefully. No throwing the car around corners on this trip. As I eased up the dirt road, I could hear Owl's low, steady purr. Probably a comfort purr rather than a contentment purr. For those who don't know, cats will also purr when they're sick, distressed or dying.

When I let him out, he surprised me by immediately hobbling around as though looking for something. He mostly drags the leg along. I put dry food in front of him, but he wasn't interested. I finally realized what Owl was doing -- he was looking for a nice, dark hidey-hole. He'd only go a short way before having to plop down and rest.

I came back down after dinner to find that Owl had gone back to his original hiding spot inside a box filled with rags. That was where I found him when I discovered he was injured. I decided to leave him alone. It's better to let Owl do things on his own volition.

Just now, he's come out and plopped down on the carpet within a few feet of me and is purring again. I hope it's a contentment purr this time. Maybe some canned food will perk up his appetite.

Yep, that did the trick. Please help by donating to the Owl Surgery Fund.

I said to Randy, "You watch. The minute I go to put the first bit of dinner into my mouth is when the vet will call." And sure enough, five minutes later, that's exactly what happened.

Which was fine with me as it was nearly 7 pm and I was getting more worried by the minute. The vet said the operation went fine and Owl is waking up and seems to be doing well. He had to use heavy sutures, wire and screws to put the knee back together. It was *badly* damaged. "I guess he won't make it through airport security," I joked. To his credit, the vet laughed and said, "Show them the x-rays."

He said to call in the morning. As long as Owl is doing fine and hasn't developed a fever or any problems, I should be able to bring him home. There are no sutures; Owl is stapled together. Those come out in the follow-up visit in two weeks.

I also heard earlier in the day from my local vet about Tribble. As I expected, he is major hyperthyroid. Fortunately, his kidney functions were good, so I can start him on Tapazole, using about half the dosage I give to Querida since Tribble seems to be more sensitive to it. The one warning she gave me is that his liver functions were somewhat elevated. She told me to check the soft palate (roof of the mouth) for any signs of yellowness which would indicate the liver problem getting worse.

And that is the Moggy Run-Down for today. Please help by donating to the Owl Surgery Fund.

Poor Owl sensed he was in trouble as soon as I brought the carrier into the office. One thing about a cat who can only hobble -- he can't escape. I petted him and soothed him and picked him up very carefully, but I could already feel him trembling.

He's such an excellent boy, though. He never made a sound for the whole trip, which takes about 50 minutes to the south end of Fresno. He laid down and tried to pretend it wasn't happening.

I was immediately impressed with the vet. He had a great presence, an excellent manner and a good handshake. I'd brought the x-ray and blood test results with me. We discussed those, then he gently extracted Owl from the carrier and gave him an exam. He went over everything he was going to do (he might have to pin the knee together), informed me when he'd call (after Owl wakes up from surgery) and assured me that he stays late to make sure everything's all right. If he has any doubts, he will take Owl home with him so he can keep an eye on him for the rest of the night.

I really liked him. I feel much reassured. Owl was an unhappy boy, not at all reassured, and tried to burrow into another reality via my armpit.

The surgery doesn't take place until late afternoon, so I probably won't hear anything until 6:30 or 7 pm. It will be a long day. Please help by donating to the Owl Surgery Fund.

Owl has managed to work up enough energy to hobble from one part of the office to another, which is encouraging. I think it's because he wanted to be closer to the heater. His poor leg is badly swollen, though. I just got back from the vet's who gave me some pain pills to help get Owl through today and tomorrow. I immediately gave him one in a treat. I should know better. He easily removed the pill from the treat, forcing me to do it the hard way, but he should be feeling better now.

I was at the vet's with Tribble. I'd made the appointment for Tribble last week, before Owl was injured, but I'm worried enough about Tribble that I took him in anyway. He seems happy enough and certainly energetic enough, but he's down to nothing but skin and bones. I can't get an ounce of flesh on him, even though he is incessantly hungry.

He treated me to the Tribble Whining Torture the entire way there. They're doing blood work, so I won't know the results for a couple of days. The vet found a nodule on one of his kidneys, and that's not a good thing. Let up hope, please, that it's only hyperthyroid or a touch of diabetes and not something worse.

In the midst of all this grimness, I should mention that there are two new contenders in the Silly Sleeping Pose Olympics -- LWC (Little White Cat) and Artemis. I am deeply, profoundly grateful to the people who have contributed to Owl's surgery. If they give me permission, I will mention them by name. Otherwise, all I can say is thank you.

Please help by donating to the Owl Surgery Fund.